Several weeks ago, I went into a good Christian book store—in fact one of the most trustworthy that I am aware of in the nation—and I asked for their best books on parenting. Here’s what I got.
- Ginger Plowman, “Don’t Make Me Count to Three!” A Mom’s Look at Heart-Oriented Discipline
- John MacArthur, What the Bible Says about Parenting: God’s Plan for Rearing Your Child
- Bruce A. Ray, Withhold Not Correction
- Joel R. Beeke, Parenting by God’s Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace
- C. H. Spurgeon, Spiritual Parenting—Updated Edition
And they recommended, but I already had:
- Tedd Trip, Shepherding a Child’s Heart
- Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace
- J. C. Ryle, The Duties of Parents
All of these books are by Christians. I expect to see every one of the authors in glory and perhaps all of them are or were more productive servants of Christ than I will ever be. Several of them say things that I find wrongheaded and a few mishandle God’s Word badly. For the rest of this series when material is quoted, I will often not give a citation; the point of this blog is not beat anyone up. But I do want us to think carefully about what is being taught in these books.
An Adventure in Parenting by Christians Books
Let me begin with a testimony. Prior to becoming a parent, I had read two parenting books: On Becoming Baby Wise and Shepherding a Child’s Heart. They were both popular 11 years ago when Kimberly, my wife, was pregnant with our first child.
By God’s grace, our firstborn did not die when we attempted to place our child on a feeding schedule prior to Kimberly’s milk coming in. To this day, I am at a loss as to what the “lactation specialist” told us in the two-minute conversation before we went home from the hospital. We also managed to ignore the doctor’s overly quick diagnosis that Kimberly was physically incapable of feeding our child. (The doctor had never heard of Becoming Baby Wise and likely couldn’t imagine anyone attempting anything but “demand feedings” for the first several weeks.) We called a lady up in our church with ten kids, and she drove over and taught Kimberly how to help our daughter latch on and told us to toss Baby Wise.
We had a similar experience, though not as life threatening, with Shepherding a Child’s Heart. We followed all the rules and spent all day attempting in serious tones to explain to a one-and-half-year-old, God’s law, our role as parents, how the child had violated God’s law, God’s redemption in Christ, and then careful apply discipline, making sure not to be angry, and so forth. My father-in-law kindly took me a side, and said, “Shane, you are attempting to reason with her and as a child she is unreasonable. Also, by trying to get her to analyze why she was disobeying God you are teaching her how to lie to you and to rationalize her sin. Finally, you need to put some more vim in that discipline.” He was right. And I felt like an idiot.
And so two years ago, when a godly new parent asked me what books I suggested on parenting, I said: “Read your Bible. Love your kids; play with them. Be consistent with rules. Discipline them when they need it. Every kid’s different.”
There’s a part of me that wants to stick to this advice. Enjoy your kids. Don’t panic. Play with them. Be their parents. Really, God gave them to you as a blessing. Cuddle up with them on the couch and talk to them about the time you, Buddy the Wonder Mutt, and Uncle Jim, swam at “Ajax Pond.” Or how about the time Grandpa let you throw a paper airplane off the balcony at church and got in trouble with the deacons. Or the time at two in the morning when the computer crashed destroying your stats project. Or the time this girl showed up at church, and she was so pretty you couldn’t talk to her, and God let you marry her, and then gave you that little princess sitting next to you.
Yet, so many of us parent in fear and trembling concerned that if we use “mechanical sleep aids” or fail to recognize the dark and sinister “dangers of scolding,” our child is going to burn in hell after a torrid life of sin and misery. Not only that, if we don’t turn every available moment into a sober searching of our child’s heart, if we don’t drive the home the gospel every time they misbehave, we likely deserve hell—we do by the way, but not for being unable to change our children’s hearts, for enjoying our kids as a delightful gift from God, or for being saved children of Adam.
Next week we’ll consider why we are so worried.